


situation normal (everything's under control)

by defcontwo



Series: jaytim tattoo 'verse [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:54:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's weird. Tim knows it's weird, that he and Jason shouldn't fit the way they do. But that's nothing compared to how weird everyone else finds it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	situation normal (everything's under control)

The thing about Jason is that he might actually be the most ridiculous person Tim's ever met in his life. 

He's a study in contradictions and misdirection, equal parts rage and brutality and compassion warring for dominance beneath his skin and Tim understands, the more he thinks about it, why Jason covered his skin with ink, like pasting over wounds to keep himself together. 

He's seen Jason knock a guy's teeth out and laugh about it, eyes bright and a feral grin stretched wide across his face. He's walked into the bathroom in Jason's run-down one-room loft and almost gotten a concussion because there were books stuffed in the cupboard because Jason'd run out of space and a hardcover copy of _IQ84_ clipped the side of his forehead. He knows, intimately, the sight of blood on the knuckles of Jason's large, knobby and scarred hands from the time he sent Jason out for condoms and Jason got into a fist fight with a pro-lifer at a rally along the way. He's seen Jason pretend not to cry when they were lounging around flipping the dials and Homeward Bound came on and the internal narrative of a fictional bulldog hit a little too close to home. 

Which, you know, what Tim wants to know is who thought a movie about a dog with a clear case of PTSD was suitable for children because really, what the fuck. 

And sometimes Jason looks at Tim with these soft eyes, a wry smirk lingering around his mouth, like it's expected but he doesn't really mean it, all the way. Times when Jason looks at Tim like Tim's worth something, like he thinks Tim is something infuriating but also precious and dear and it scares the living hell out of Tim. 

It's a weird sort of thing, this scraped across settling that they have. Scars and ink and stab wounds in common, the memory of a crest across their chest that they have no use for anymore but still ache for nonetheless. It's weird. Tim knows it's weird, that he and Jason shouldn't fit the way they do. 

But that's nothing compared to how weird everyone else finds it. 

\--- 

"Tim," Dick says, quiet and patient and a little manic around the eyes and the edges. "Please tell me that you're not saying what I think you're saying." 

Tim folds his arm across his chest. He's a little high-strung himself, a little bit panicked because he did not prepare for this at all but there was Vicki Vale and that suspicious, How Dare You Keep Something From Your Dear Brother Richard glare and Dick dragged him away from the luncheon and into the coat closet which even Tim has to admit is a little too on the nose, and proceeded to glare some more and well -- here they are. 

"Well, uh," Tim starts. "What do you think I'm saying?" His voice rises up in a sort of terrified lurch. It's like he's going through puberty all over again, _fuck_. This is embarrassing. He's an adult and he makes his own choices and he will not be cowed by how much this is clearly freaking Dick out. 

"I think that you're saying that you're having _sexual intercourse_ with your _brother_ ," Dick hisses and Tim lets out a snort before he can help it, clapping a hand over his mouth quickly. Sexual intercourse, not a phrase he ever expected to hear out of Dick Grayson's mouth. 

Tim blows out a breath. There are a lot of things he could say, but. "Jason and I have never been brothers and you know it." 

"What are you _thinking_?" 

Tim is pretty sure it sounds like everything Dick is saying should be italicized. 

"Look, Dick, I get that you have cause for concern -- " 

"Oh, I have _cause for concern_ ," Dick says, waving his hands around dramatically. The closet is definitely not big enough for this. "You two have tried to _kill each other_. He tried to kill you, Tim, do you remember that?" 

"If we wanted each other dead, we'd both be dead. You do realize that, right?" 

"That is some seriously fucked up logic, Timmy. Anyways, since when do you have _sex_?" 

Tim pinches the bridge of his nose. "Since before Jason, I promise you that." 

Dick gapes. "What the hell, little brother?" 

Yeah, so. 

That could have gone better. 

\--- 

"I'm just saying, if they aren't going to make Mara Jade a central figure, why even freaking bother with doing more movies in the first place, you know?" Ives says, smashing a button on his X-Box controller. 

"Uh-huh," Tim says absently. He's about five seconds from getting eaten by zombies and all he can think is, if this game were real life, he'd be fucking awesome at it. But in the here and now, he is bombing at City of the Dead. 

"Dude, are you even listening to me?" 

"You're despairing at all of the ways future Star Wars movies could get fucked up and if George Lucas knows what's good for him, he'll just hire you already to write the script and cast all the parts," Tim says. On screen, his character just died. There's a good metaphor to the futility of his efforts at this game, probably. 

"Lucky guess, jackass," Ives says. He tosses a wide grin Tim's way and Tim warms, at the easy bickering and at the flush high in Ives's cheeks, at how healthy he looks now. 

"Hey, Tim. There is a dude loitering outside my house that kind of looks like he might be able to snap me in half, do you think I should get out my pepper spray?" 

Tim looks away from the screen to cast a quick glance out the giant living room window. There's a familiar motorcycle parked on the curb and leaning against it, all tall, black jean-clad limbs and crossed arms, is Jason. He's wearing a faded t-shirt and when he rubs at an arm idly, Tim can see the tattoos peeking out from beneath. 

"No, uh. That's the guy I'm kind of…" Tim stops. Jason's, what? The guy that he's dating? He's pretty sure they've never been on anything remotely resembling a date unless you count a drug bust outside of a McDonald's and then stopping in for McFlurries right after. 

Tim clears his throat. "That's the guy I'm seeing. I asked him to drop by and give me a ride since you need to take care of those errands for your mom." 

Ives looks back and forth between Jason out the window and at Tim. Both of his eyebrows raise. "Seriously?!" 

"What? Is it because he's a guy?" Tim says, more than a little defensive because they've never actually had this talk but he just sort of assumed that well, Ives would understand. Ives is that kind of guy. 

Ives waves an idle hand. "Puh-lease, dude. When we were fifteen years old and went to go see Blade Runner during that scifi marathon at the old theater, during that scene where Harrison Ford takes off his shirt to get cleaned up, you let out a _sound_. Like a gasping shriek or something. Super un-subtle, Drake." 

Tim chokes. "I did _not_!" 

"You definitely did. People from three rows down turned around and stared at you." 

"Shut up," Tim grumbles. 

"But you know, Harrison Ford aside because I mean, even I know that Harrison Ford is a dreamboat," Ives says and Tim laughs at that, only Ives would say something like "dreamboat" with a straight face, "I just assumed that your type in guys would be. I don't know. Preppy and nice. Not scary and tattooed. Because you're all, you know, you," Ives says, waving a hand that Tim thinks is somehow meant to convey 'all of you, you great big shitnerd.'

"I have tattoos," Tim says, almost entirely for the way Ives's eyebrows raise even further into his forehead. "Two, actually." 

His right hand raises absently, cupping the place over his ribcage where his fibonacci spiral has only just healed. Order in chaos all done up in deep black and red and it'd hurt a whole lot more than Tim had expected but through it all, Jason had hummed to himself, Nancy Sinatra crooning in the background, and it was worth it, every second of it. 

"Yeah, okay, let's see 'em, then." 

Tim squawks. "I am not getting undressed in front of an _open window_ , Ives." 

"Fine, whatever, like I want to see your pale, scrawny ass anyways. Get outta here," Ives says. Tim unfolds himself from the floor, brushing crumbs from the nachos they devoured earlier off his corduroys. Through the window, Jason meets his gaze and makes a face, scrunching his nose up and Tim smiles, a stupid, fond smile in spite of himself. 

"Say hi to the scary boyfriend for me." 

\--- 

Bruce just glowers. 

Glowers and opens his mouth a couple of times, looking all for the world as if he's got something to say before snapping his jaw shut, glowering a little more before clapping a hand on Tim's shoulder, peering at him meaningfully, and then walking away. 

So. 

The less said about that, the better, really. 

\--- 

"I just had a very nice conversation with a giant about 20th century feminist literature," Tam says, shutting the door behind her as she walks into his office with a stack of paperwork. Internally, Tim groans. Always with the paperwork. "Is the giant the Red Hood?" 

Tim gapes a little. The problem with working with someone who knows your secret is that she starts to second-guess every little thing he does and she gets better with every day at picking out the little details. Tam is a cup of coffee with Steph and a few good martial arts lessons from getting out on the streets herself and everyone knows it. 

"How the hell?" 

Tam shrugs. "He's here to see you. He's Gotham through and through, he's got that look, you know the one. You can tell the type a mile away. He's got the right height and build. I mean, it's not like you have normal friends, right?" 

"I have normal friends." Tam just looks at him. "Okay, I have _one_ normal friend," Tim amends. 

"He seems nice," Tam says mildly. "Knowledgable. I mean, you know for a violent criminal." 

"He tried to kill me once, you know," Tim says. He doesn't know why it comes out, a compulsion that just comes over him because well, Tam hasn't quite stopped looking at him like she's constantly finding him wanting and he deserves it, he knows he does, but that doesn't make it scrape at him any less. 

"Well, you've gotten over it for your own reasons, clearly," Tam says. "You're sleeping with him, aren't you?" 

"That obvious, huh?" 

Tam hums. "You have been unnervingly content as of late, for you. Although I'm kind of surprised that you've been able to look past your ideological differences."

It's -- well, it's a good point. It's what Dick was trying to get at but he was too shocked, too clouded by personal feelings to articulate it. Tim shrugs, a small, uncertain thing. "We're different people than we were two, three years ago. At least -- I hope I am." 

"Do me a favor? Treat him better than you've treated your previous exes, all right?" 

Tim swallows hard, meaningless apologies trying to worm their way out of his throat. They're just words, in the end. Time and actions, that's what really matters, he gets that now. 

"I'm working on it." 

\--- 

"Did you know," Tim says, folding himself over Jason, skin to skin, ink to ink, until they're so entangled that he's not quire sure where one ends and the other begins. "Apparently, according to multiple sources, we're kind of a weird couple." 

Jason scrapes teeth along pale, soft skin, another mark that Tim's going to have to hide beneath collar and tie. "No shit, Timbo. Why, that bother you?"

Jason is -- Jason is warm and close and utterly ridiculous and in another minute, he's probably going to say something to piss Tim off and in another few minutes, he'll say something that makes Tim sigh, a little, that makes him go a little more soft and fond than he's comfortable with and in the morning, they'll fight over breakfast because Jason believes hot sauce belongs on everything which is completely bullshit, obviously, and in this moment, knowing this, Tim wouldn't trade it for anything. 

"Nope, guess not."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] situation normal (everything's under control)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6448693) by [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)




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